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Soul Mateys, Part 13


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#1 Guest_Laufey_and_Ophidia_*

Posted 04 November 2004 - 11:15 PM

Soul Mateys


Part Thirteen

The boy shuddered, his face not just pale but almost completely bloodless. From the distant look in his eyes, Andorel got the impression that he was only half conscious. “You...” he whispered. “Know you...”

“Yeah, you do,” Andorel said, and he tried to modulate his voice to make it soft and non-threatening. The blood and...other stuff...he was covered with he couldn’t do much about though. As he reached out his hand to smooth the lad’s hair away from his forehead, he noticed that he was smearing the pale skin with blood, marking it. “Name’s Andorel. Remember that?”

“Andorel...” The boy suddenly winced, his face twisting into a grimace of pain. “Should remember. Can’t. Hurts...still hurts.” His voice was almost inaudible now. “Make it stop?”

Andorel felt the urge to kill rising within him, but he kept his voice as steady as he could. “Wish I could, lad,” he said. “I killed the lot o’ those b...witches, but I wish I could of been here sooner.”

“You...killed them?” Sounding incredulous now, the boy struggled weakly to try to get into a sitting position. His arms and legs wouldn’t obey him though, so eventually Andorel simply propped him up against his own body. Wouldn’t normally be showing off corpses to a kid...’cept I think he needs to see ‘em for himself.

“Yeah. Killed them all. They deserved it too, for what they did.”

“Wanted them dead,” the young Dekaras murmured, staring at the surrounding carnage in dreamy disbelief. “They...they did...things. Things inside.”

“I know,” Andorel said, his heart heavy. “I know what they did.” What must that feel like? And how much of it does he still feel? “I don’t blame ya for wantin’ them dead.”

“But you should!” He was shaking again, trembling like a leaf. Not crying though, still not crying. “I was bad. I don’t matter now, not anymore. They said so. Said it was...was a...necessary sacrifice. For the greater good. They all said so. Even...” He broke off, refusing to meet Andorel’s eyes. The half-orc had a pretty good idea what he was holding back though. After all, he’d seen it.

“Even your folks,” Andorel said, and now the rage was only barely held back. “Yeah, I know that bit too. But guess what, Vaddy? They. Were. WRONG!”

“They couldn’t be wrong. How could they all be...” Dekaras suddenly fell silent, and looked around warily.

“What’s up?”

“Look.” The boy whispered. “Someone escaped.” He pointed at a glittering trail on the damp grass.

“Oh.” The trail of blood again. Guess we follow it this time.

“We’ve got to follow it.” Dekaras said, frowning slightly in puzzlement, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was saying.

“Yeah, we have,” Andorel sighed, “Can you walk, lad?”

The boy tried to struggle upright, using Andorel’s plate-armoured leg for support, but rapidly slid downwards again. He tried again, slipping and slithering on the grass, and again, and again. Why doesn’t he just give up?

“Ok, ok, don’t worry ‘bout it. I can fix that, no problem.” Andorel knelt down, and carefully removed his blood-spattered gauntlet, and then placed his hand on the boy’s forehead. Or at least, tried to- he was so small that Andorel’s green hand covered most of his hair. He closed his eyes, and concentrated briefly. A blue glow surrounded them both for a second. Dekaras looked upwards in surprise, and then hastily got to his feet.

“Was that a spell?” He asked curiously and just a little warily.

“Sort of.” Andorel replied, putting his metal glove back on and wiggling his fingers. “Not magic, more like a priest spell, I guess.” He said, trying to sound as casual as possible. “ It’s just something I can do. Comes in handy, ya know. Com’on, let’s go.”

The warrior and the boy walked off over the hill, Andorel carefully avoiding his normal clattering stride so that the weakened lad could keep up. He would have picked Dekaras up, but he knew that he wouldn’t like that- and the adult Vaddy would never forgive him for it. All the same, his arms twitched every time the boy stumbled or stopped to catch his breath. The trail carried on, silver in the moonlight, until they reached a dip in the rolling hillside, and there, nestled in it, was the dark mass of a small cluster of trees. The trail led right in. Andorel pulled his sword off his back again, checked Dekaras was alright, and then walked in.

The wind was picking up again, stirring the leaves of the trees, making them whisper quietly among themselves. Do not come closer...danger...do not...intruder...death awaits. Death...death... Andorel shook his head, trying to ignore them. So, there was danger up ahead. That wasn’t much of a surprise. There wasn’t much to do about it either. He could still see the trail of blood, still looking as fresh as before, and it disappeared directly into the middle of the trees. Nothing for it.

There was a light touch on his arm, and he looked down to find his youthful friend tugging at it. “Wait,” the boy said. “It’s too dangerous. I should go in first.”

“Look here,” Andorel hotly began, “if you think I’m goin’ to let a kid put himself in danger before me, then...” Then he broke off. The first time he’d had one of these weird dream-thingies, he’d tried to protect his friend from whatever had made that trail, and that had failed. The second time, he’d pushed too hard, and that had failed too. Maybe, if I wanna help him, I should start out by listening to him. “Right,” he said. “’splain why you should go first, and you can. I promise.”

The boy hesitated, and although he still looked tired out and hurting, there was a strange new eagerness in his voice. Something like hunger. “Something is up ahead,” he said. “Something very bad.” He was staring into the darkness, sniffing the air. “I can...feel it, I guess. It’s hard to explain. I can find it, I know I can. I need to find it. And it wants me to come to it, it wants me. It won’t let you close if you come on your own, and if I go on my own, it might get me. But if I show you the way...” He wasn’t smiling, but there was a new light in his eyes that Andorel hadn’t seen since the events on the hill, a new purpose. “If I show you the way, maybe we can kill it together. You showed me - you are really good at killing.”

“All right, Vaddy,” Andorel said, holding his large, gloved hand out. “This time, we do it your way. Well, almost. I don’t wanna lose track of ya, so...”

“I’m not a baby!”

“Didn’t say ya were. All the same, this is a mighty dark place. I wanna help ya out, any way I can, but I can’t do that if I get lost in there, right? So, I’m trusting you to lead me straight. All I’m askin’ is that ya trust me to watch your back.”

For a moment, Andorel feared, no, knew, that he had failed again. And then the young Dekaras nodded, and there was a slight softening of the dark eyes, as he reached up to place his own, smaller hand in Andorel’s. “Oh, all right,” he said. “Have it your way then.”

Andorel wasn’t able to remember much of the walk, afterwards. It seemed to last forever, hours, maybe even days. The darkness was compact, he couldn’t see a thing. He could hear though, roars and hisses, and slithering hungry little noises passing close by. And the voices, coming closer and closer, coalescing into a single, all too familar one. Death. Murder. Slaying. Killing. He could feel too, feel roots and vines, grasping for his feet, and wriggling slimy things underfoot, attempting to trip him up. What he could also feel though, was the tug of his friend’s hand, pulling him along, the one constant in the dark void. He was right. He is the only one who could find his way through here. Andorel couldn’t see the trail any longer, but he knew it was there all the same, visible to his young guide. We’ll make this work. I will save him.

And then the trees gave way to light, they passed into the clearing that lay at the end of the path, and suddenly Andorel wasn’t so certain at all any longer.

He felt the small hand clasped in his hold on tighter than before, and he heard a tiny gasp from the young Dekaras. Oh, Gods...I never thought it’d be this bad.

The clearing was lit with a silvery light, somewhat like moonlight but brighter, showing every crevice and corner of the ghastly scene that greeted the two explorers. A broad fallen tree trunk lay across the middle of the clearing, covered with thorny brambles and slimy black moss. And on it, lay Vadrak Dekaras, the adult, the assassin that Andorel had got to know and even admire, in a strange way. However, there was one important way in which he differed- he was dying.

The assassin’s face was an unnatural pale yellow colour, waxy and shiny with sweat. His sunken eyes were closed, but his face twitched and his eyelids fluttered constantly. Occasionally, his hands clenched, as if he was in pain. He must be in pain, he must be! Although he looked no older than he did in the real world, his normally dark hair was streaked with grey, as if the colour had been sucked out of some of the strands.

That wasn’t the bad bit, though. The bad bit was what was crouched by the assassin’s head, and it made Andorel feel cold all over. Andorel had never seen this clawed creature before, for real or in a book, but there were some things he just knew. And he knew that this was the Slayer, one of the forms of Bhaal. It looked at them arrogantly, with multiple black eyes, but didn’t move- yet. From the back of its head trailed numerous long pulsating tendrils which glistened with mucus in the pale light. As Andorel watched in horror, another tendril grew from the back of the Slayer’s head, and fixed itself on its target- Dekaras. The sucking end of the slimy tentacle felt around blindly for a few seconds, and then fixed itself onto the assassin’s neck. A web of smaller tendrils spread around it in a circle, exploring over the skin. As it fastened itself, it grew thicker, and started to pulsate like its neighbours. Red and pink gobbets moved up inside the translucent tendril towards the Slayer’ head. They’re eating him alive...Bhaal is eating him alive.

“Who is that?”

Andorel started at the voice. He’d utterly forgotten about the boy. The young Vaddy was looking at the Slayer and his older clone with a mixture of mild disgust and fascination.

Andorel took a deep breath. I can’t tell him...can I? I spose I better- he has to know the truth. Look at what happened when I tried too hard to protect him! “It’s you. That’s you, as a grown-up. That’s who you really are.”

The boy looked very sceptical. “But I don’t have pincers- and I don’t eat people, either.”

“Not that thing! That’s a really evil, nasty monster, so how could that be you? That isn’t even human!”

The boy looked at the hideous, clawed monstrosity in the clearing, and then back at Andorel. “But I told you,” he said, sounding as if he was stating something very obvious. “I was bad. I am bad, or why else would they have...” His eyes lowered. “They said that if they didn’t do it I would be a monster when I got older. Maybe they missed something and I’ll still be, I just didn’t think I’d have...mandibles.”

Andorel heartily wished that a few more of the witches would turn up at this point. The urge to scatter their insides all over the clearing was strong enough to make him almost choke. Instead, he hunched down by his young friend, his large hands gripping the thin shoulders firmly. “Vaddy, listen to me. You can trust me, right? You know I wouldn’t try to hurt ya?”

The boy hesitated, and Andorel could almost see the thoughts racing inside his head, flashing by as quickly as lightning bolts. He’d gotten to taste just a little bit of that, but could still remember what it was like. An’ I think I’m better off without it. “You did kill them,” the young Dekaras softly said, almost as if he was speaking to himself. “And you’re not human, so you don’t think like they do. I suppose maybe I can trust you. For now.”

Andorel exhaled. He hadn’t even noticed that he’d been holding his breath either. “Right. Now that’s settled, let me say that I know ya. I mean, him. I mean, you as a grownup. We’re good mates, see? And I wouldn’t be friends with an evil monster, not me. So, you’re not a monster, and won’t be a monster either. Ya have my word on it - and I keep my promises.” He reached out a large hand, unable to resist tousling the boy’s wild and tangled hair a litte, and he grinned. “Now, what d’ya say to that monster over there gettin’ itself a good thrashing and then me gettin’ the rest of ya outta there?”

The boy looked solemnly back at him for a few seconds, and then the smallest hint of a smile crossed his lips. “All right,” he said. “Catch up with me then.” He’d already started towards the leering horror that was Bhaal, when Andorel grabbed him by the collar, lifting him into the air.

“Vaddy, are you soddin’ nuts?”

“Let me down!” the boy protested, his legs kicking futilely in the air. He was unable to make contact with anything solid though, including Andorel who was holding him at arm’s length. And probably a good thing too. Think he might bite otherwise. Instead he had to settle for glaring darkly back at the half-orc. “Andorel, this isn’t funny!”

“I’m not doin’ it for fun! Listen, you’re just a little kid right now! You can’t fight that thing, I have to do that!”

Dekaras sighed. “That’s not it. If I go out there, that thing will try to get me. And then maybe you can get him...I mean me...I mean the rest of me free. You even have that magic, that healing spell, I think I...I mean he might need that. See? You have to let go of me. That’s the only way.”

Andorel hesitated. Then, he gently lowered the lad to the ground, and opened his hand. Doing so was almost physically painful, it worried him that much. All the same, he knew it was the right thing. Trust has to go both ways. “Go on then, mate,” he said. “Do your part - I’ll do mine.”





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